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Understanding 9/11For The Record #146 - A Look at "Military Matters"
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FTR #146 Beginning with an examination of a private security firm that contracts with major multinational corporations, this broadcast focuses on recent (as of March of 1999) developments in the area of defense.
Defense Systems Limited (the security firm) is run by former British, Soviet and U.S. national security veterans and specializes in operations on behalf of "extraction firms" - companies that extract mineral wealth from the environment. Their leading clients include major oil companies, such as British Petroleum and mining firms, such as the De Beers diamond operation.
Following DSL's training of security forces in Colombia, charges were aired that the police that had been the recipients of the company's expertise had engaged in human rights abuses. Significantly, some military experts envision the type of relationship DSL has with its clients as portending the wave of the future with regard to military matters. As was the case until the middle of the seventeenth century, major war making entities are seen as being corporate, tribal or other "non-national" entities.
In addition to the discussion of DSL, the program sets forth information about the "Urban Warrior" Marine war games that were staged in the San Francisco Bay Area in March of 1999. One of a number of such exercises that have been conducted in recent years in American urban centers, the exercises were of an ostensibly humanitarian nature.
An examination of documentation presented by the Marine Corps raises substantive questions about the accuracy of these claims. Although the operation was stated to be in preparation for operation in Third World cities, few of those have the physical characteristics of the environments selected for the exercises in the U.S. In addition, the "Urban Warrior" documents explicitly state that a major problem of the future will be the physical proximity of large numbers of urban poor to members of the "elite". The documents imply that it will be the military's job to safeguard those elites in the event of conflict. (Recorded on 3/21/99.)
Defense Systems Limited (the security firm) is run by former British, Soviet and U.S. national security veterans and specializes in operations on behalf of "extraction firms" - companies that extract mineral wealth from the environment. Their leading clients include major oil companies, such as British Petroleum and mining firms, such as the De Beers diamond operation.
Following DSL's training of security forces in Colombia, charges were aired that the police that had been the recipients of the company's expertise had engaged in human rights abuses. Significantly, some military experts envision the type of relationship DSL has with its clients as portending the wave of the future with regard to military matters. As was the case until the middle of the seventeenth century, major war making entities are seen as being corporate, tribal or other "non-national" entities.
In addition to the discussion of DSL, the program sets forth information about the "Urban Warrior" Marine war games that were staged in the San Francisco Bay Area in March of 1999. One of a number of such exercises that have been conducted in recent years in American urban centers, the exercises were of an ostensibly humanitarian nature.
An examination of documentation presented by the Marine Corps raises substantive questions about the accuracy of these claims. Although the operation was stated to be in preparation for operation in Third World cities, few of those have the physical characteristics of the environments selected for the exercises in the U.S. In addition, the "Urban Warrior" documents explicitly state that a major problem of the future will be the physical proximity of large numbers of urban poor to members of the "elite". The documents imply that it will be the military's job to safeguard those elites in the event of conflict. (Recorded on 3/21/99.)
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